Biden last export control, for real this time! Who does and doesn't get to build datacenters under this new regulation?

To discuss, we brought on RAND's Lennart Heim, Jimmy Goodrich, Chris Miller, and Dylan Patel.

Outtro Music: Afida Es & the Siglap Boys - jangan goda, Malaysia, 1967 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvXrdwKST1U&ab_channel=schutbart

hasnah haron & the spiritual 70's _ bintang pujaan, Malaysia 1977 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4cMsoLttNs&ab_channel=nostalgiahassny

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Can diplomatic charisma prevent crises from escalating? Does the CCP feel conflicted about aligning with the likes of Iran and North Korea? What’s the use of communicating during a great power competition?

To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed R. Nicholas Burns, Biden’s Ambassador to China, whose diplomatic career spans 35 years and 8 countries.

We discuss…

Outro music: 

Óró Mo Bháidín - Mary O’Hara

Auld Lang Syne - Rendition by The Irish Rovers, originally written by Robert Burns

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To discuss the Christmas Day MAGA civil war over H1Bs and the future of US immigration policy, ChinaTalk interviewed Divyansh Kaushik, a computer science PhD and vice president of Beacon Global Strategies. 

We get into…

Special thanks to Mani Subramani, Gauri Subramani, and our anonymous contributor who grew up in China for sharing their reflections on immigrant parenting. 

Outro song: Kishore Kumar, Rote Hue Aate Hai Sab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e18Pgofqpnc

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Jake Newby is the author of Concrete Avalanche, a free newsletter about music from China. You might remember Jake from the Chinese shoegaze election playlist, or from the tracklist he presented on ChinaTalk back in June. Now that the year is over, Jake is here to introduce his picks for the overall most interesting songs to come out of China in 2024.

This tracklist includes everything from Afrobeat-influenced Beijing funk endorsed by Gilles Peterson, to an electronic track crafted in a Tibetan monastery featuring Buddhist chanting. You can find links to listen to each track individually on the ChinaTalk substack. Enjoy!

1. Golden Seeds 黄金种子 by Sleeping Dogs

2. Never Broken, Never Healed by Seon Ga 信鴿

3. Aroma Compound by ayrtbh

4. Stage Riot 舞台 by Carsick Cars

5. Hereditary Nightmare 遗 传 噩 梦 by The Swan and Blossoms 天鹅与花朵

6. Kagi 鍵 by Voision Xi

7. 物件 (Object) by Mdprl & Git Bu$y Trio

8. Night Patrol by Fazi 法兹

9. Mantra Of Buddha Akshobhya 不 动 佛 心 咒 by Howie Lee

10. Ghostbomb by Ghostmass 大鬼众

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Chris Miller of Chip War and Lennart Heim of RAND check in on the geopolitics of AI. We explore:

The CSET report I referenced: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/chinas-sti-operations/

Chris and Lennart's ChinaTalk in early 2023 https://www.chinatalk.media/p/ai-compute-101-the-geopolitics-of

Outtro music: japanese citypop producers collaborating Beijinger Cheng Fangyuan in the 80s! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=403GCMhZ89Q&ab_channel=Heatwolves itself a cover of this Japanese track but better than the original https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyjnkuhRfJA&ab_channel=PopBULL

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We’ll be getting into the biggest tv show of 2024, a celebrity road trip “will they or won’t they divorce” show which is just as big of a hot mess as it sounds like, rigged nationalist singing competitions, megacorp boy idol capitalism corrupting something as seemingly innocent as a farming reality show, and xinjiang-set tv hit drama.

Our guest today is Em who writes Active Faults, one of my favorite substacks that explores the China’s entertainment industry and celebrity fandom. It is a consistently dark read but one of my favorite discoveries this year. https://activefaults.substack.com/

Puttro music: one of those foreigners who showed up the Chinese singers in 歌手， China's 'The Voice" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMpnuYBcA_I

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Nathan Lambert of the excellent https://www.interconnects.ai/ newsletter and the Allen Institute joins the pod for a rundown of the biggest AI stories of this year and next. We also talk about what he's learned training advanced AI models at the Allen Institute.

Outtro Music: Young and Holtful by Young-Holt Unlimited, 1969. https://open.spotify.com/track/5am0dV7aB91Q6sWqIAuurA?autoplay=true

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Commerce released its much-anticipated chip export-control updates yesterday, December 2. But today's guests are unimpressed.

But are we right to have hoped for more? To discuss, I’m joined by Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis and Greg Allen from CSIS.

A disclaimer: We recorded this yesterday the same day the regs were released, and given their complexity our takes are inevitably provisional.

We get into:

Outtro music:

From the Netherlands! Mensen by Josine Van Dalsum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igRkp_03UHk

From Japan! Yadokari - Meiko Kaji https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJG2Wozor94

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Dylan Patel, Doug O'Laughlin, Jon from Asianometry and I all chat the biggest semiconductor stories of the year. We get into energy demands for datacenters, Intel, Samsung, Nvidia, SMIC, Huawei, Deepseek and the rise of ChatGPT.

Outtro music: Sabicas, Carcelera (Reflejo Andaluz) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2_nX21D8Go

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Few books have influenced me as much as the Makers of Modern Strategy series. The three volumes (published in 1942, 1986, and 2023) are indispensable to understanding statecraft, leadership, and the evolution of warfare across millennia.

The New Makers of Modern Strategy (2023) is a thousand pages long and analyzes strategy from ancient Greece to the Congo.

The man behind this behemoth collection is Hal Brands, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a returning ChinaTalk guest.

In our conversation, we discuss:

For reference, you can compare the content of the three volumes with this spreadsheet, courtesy of Nicholas Welch.

Outtro music: When This Cruel War is Over (Civil War ballad by Hermes Nye) https://open.spotify.com/track/1Zjcz6B4PromuFFXMWu8hK?si=500b718d8361421b

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